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Sergeant Carr opened the LAW and handed it to me. I
set the sights and pulled the pin to activate the firing device. I
pressed the trigger mechanism . . . nothing; a dud! Sergeant Carr
handed me another LAW . . . another dud! As I opened the third and began
setting the sights Sergeant Carr leaned in front of me and yanked
a wire, pulling the blasting cap out of a claymore mine located
pointed in our direction. The blasting cap went off almost
immediately. Sergeant Carr was lucky it didn't blow off his hand. Why didn't they blow that mine sooner, I
thought. At least five of us would have been blown to pieces . . .
little pieces.
We continued to receive small arms fire from Hill 328, however,
none from 322. We had chased them back into their holes with a
volley of hand grenades.
I sighted in the bunker once again. Just as I fixed the bunker
between the two sight reticules and placed my hand on the
push-button trigger, to my amazement I saw Sergeant Clemons's face
in the sights. I couldn't believe it. What the hell . . . how did he
get up there?
Old sarge got tired of screwing around with those new-fangled
throw-away bazookas and decided to take matters into his own
hands. I was shocked to see sarge wave proudly with a grenade in
his hand as he lay close to the ground next to the bunker. I could
see him chanting silently "one, two, three, four" and then he
rammed the grenade into the bunker and rolled over with head in
hands.
Boom! The bunker came apart.
I
couldn't wait any longer. Instinctively, I shimmied up the hill
near Clemons' location. Sergeant Carr began moving the rest of the
platoon up the line as Sergeant Clemons and I crawled from bunker
to bunker, foxhole to foxhole, dropping grenades into each.
It reminded me of the movie "Pork Chop Hill" where guys were
falling one-by-one as they reached the crest of the hill. We
continued to receive fire from Hill 328. Nothing could stop us
now. We secured Hill 322 and without hesitation began to ascend
Hill 328.
"Get some grenades up here!" I screamed over to Sergeant Carr.
It was like a scavenger hunt . . . guys running amok across the hill;
some running, falling, rolling, some crawling frantically, getting
up and running some more. Each foxhole we passed someone tossed in
a grenade or emptied a magazine.
It was so different than before. Casualties were not a question.
Nobody stopped. We kept pushing upward. Sweating, screaming,
bleeding, breathing like a marathon runner gasping deeply; all in
unison. We were cheering each other on; pumping each other up. We
were frenzied.
The squad from second platoon began dragging off the wounded
(several from 1-61 had been waiting wounded for hours) as we
continued to push on. I could hear a resounding cheer from those
in 1-61 who had been wounded and trapped by enemy fire.
Clemons and I were totally out of breath as we bent over gasping.
It was a real contest in which we had just engaged ourselves; a
deadly but real contest. I was not going to let him win. I
couldn’t let him get ahead of me. We surged together. Sergeant Carr
led the rest of the platoon in the challenge and they pushed ahead
with us.
As we crawled to the crest of Hill 328 we all stood up and dashed
from foxhole to foxhole, filling each with another magazine of
M-16. We reached the finish line of the marathon. We were
completely spent. I'll never forget that look on Clemons' face as
we both bent over gasping for air. He was shaking his head. Like
two pugilists, we half smiled at each other and nodded in
recognition.
I
looked up across the hill and yelled back to Sergeant Carr, "Move
your people across and secure the far side of the hill."
"I got it 1-6," Carr replied. He too was exhausted.
I
took a couple of steps and looked for Phil (my RTO) to give radio
confirmation of our seizing our objective and to insure we had
medevacs coming in.
"Phil," I yelled as I continued across the top of the hill.
Suddenly I felt a powerful explosion at my back. My feet were
catapulted over my head. I was floating, and it seemed to be
happening in slow motion. My back was burning like boiling water
from a shower. I don't remember coming back down. I'm not sure how
much time had passed. I could hear the echoing sound of Doc
screaming "1-6 is hit; 1-6 is hit. Get a medevac, 1-6 is hit."
Surely I was dreaming again. I slipped in and out of consciousness
for the next few seconds.
Slowly things began to clear up. I could distinguish voices and
began to focus my eyes on increasingly clear figures running
around me. I finally realized I had been hit. I wasn't sure by
what, but surely a truck was involved!
Instant terror! How bad is it? I laid there almost
motionless. My back and buttocks burned like hell. Slowly I moved
my right thumb to touch the fingers of my right hand. One by one I
found them intact. Then my left hand; finger by finger. All okay.
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